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In this paper, Chair of Sport Psychology Members Julia Schüler and Wanja Wolff, graduate students Jonas Hofstetter, Lorena Baumann and Lena Wolf collaborated with Prof. Christian Dettmers from the Kliniken Schmieder to investigate the temporal dynamics of fatigue in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Additionally, they assessed whether psychological (perceived motor and cognitive exertion) and neuronal correlates (oxygenation of the prefrontal cortex; PFC) of accruing fatigue can be predicted by a self-report measure of trait-self-control.

Linear mixed-effects models revealed significant increases in perceived motor and cognitive exertion, as well as increases in PFC oxygenation. Hierarchical stepwise regression analyses showed that higher trait self-control predicted a less steep increase in PFC oxygenation and perceived cognitive exertion, while trait fatigue did not predict change in any dependent variable.

These results provide preliminary evidence for the suggested link between self-control and fatigue. As self-control can be enhanced with training, this finding possibly has important implications for devising nonpharmacological interventions to help patients deal with symptoms of fatigue.

This research reflects our interest in the self-regulation of human performance and more specifically in how self-control is associated with fatigue in neurological patients during a strenuous task. In addition to our interest in how athletes maximize performance, the present work reflects our interest in how research on the self-regulation of human can be used to maintain, improve and – in this case – possibly restore health.

The bibliographic information of the paper: Wolff, W., Schüler, J., Hofstetter, J., Baumann, L., Wolf, L., & Dettmers, C. (2019). Trait self-control outperforms trait fatigue in predicting MS patients’ cortical and perceptual responses to an exhaustive task. Neural Plasticity. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/8527203